In the liquid packaging industry and specifically for the packaging of liquid contents into pouches, it is common practice to produce from a single machine a pouch from a plastic film role and to fill it with a liquid content simultaneously as the pouch is being formed and sealed. Such machines are commonly referred to as vertical form, fill and seal machines VFFS. These machines are adapted to form a pouch of predetermined size and fill it with a content of predetermined volume. Such a machine or machines are commonly associated with conveyors which convey the filled pouches to casers or to a bagger which places a predetermined number of these filled pouches into bags. Depending on the required desired output of a production of the plant, several of these machines and conveyor lines are installed. Further, dependent on the different sizes of pouches to be produced with different volume contents, several more machines and floor space is occupied by such operation. Accordingly, large investments are required to purchase machinery and to provide the requisite floor space to install such machines, conveyors and bagging equipment. Therefore, there is a need to provide a reduction of such high costs in equipment floor space and associated labour.
Further, these machines and their component parts require down time to adjust the machine to varying parameters such as the change of the pouch size, the type of liquid to be bagged, the need to clean the machine for sanitary purposes and particularly so in diary operations, to modify the sealing jaws to suit different plastic film compositions, etc, etc. This down time of these machines is also an expensive factor in the cost of operation and of the number of machines required in the bagging plant.